Not satisfied with establishing market dominance in just one area, forward-looking companies like Airbnb and Uber continue to explore new arenas of profit. Leveraging success into adjacent markets isn’t about making a complete pivot: it’s about applying your enterprise’s core competencies in a new way.
What Is an Adjacent Market?
An adjacent market is one that sits next to the business a company already runs. It’s close enough that the company can reuse what it’s good at, like its technology, customers, brand or sales network, but different enough to bring in new revenue.
That’s what separates it from a pivot. A pivot abandons the original idea. An adjacency move keeps the core business running and asks a simple question: what else could we do with what we’ve already built? The risk is lower than starting from scratch, because the hardest assets to build are already in place.
As reported in Forbes, this kind of agile startup strategizing benefits even well-established companies, in the tech world and beyond. Here are 5 companies that understand the vast potential of expanding into adjacent markets.
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Five Companies That Made the Move
The home-rental startup is getting into the flight-booking game with Flights, an online airline reservation tool. This move will position the company to cover all aspects of the consumer travel experience, and makes it a viable competitor for booking giants like Expedia and Priceline.
The idea came out of a bigger plan. In November 2016, Airbnb launched Trips, a platform that brought homes together with bookable local “Experiences,” and said Flights and Services would be added in the future. “Until now, Airbnb has been about homes,” CEO Brian Chesky said at the launch.
Red Bull the energy drink may “give you wings,” but Red Bull the media company will give you TV shows, magazines, movies, books, and music. Producing original sports and lifestyle content has made Red Bull Media House one of the world’s leading premium content providers. The bonus? An effective venue to advertise its main product.
It’s a good example of a company using what it’s best at in a new way. Red Bull had always marketed itself through extreme sports and events, so producing the films, shows and magazines around those events was a natural next step.
Exploring adjacent markets predates the digital age. Direct-selling giant Avon has always stuck to its original marketing model, but used to be known for another product: books.
As Amazon would do decades later, Avon expanded its offerings while keeping the same door-to-door and community-based marketing technique. Eventually abandoning bookselling, Avon switched to beauty, household, and personal care items in 1886 and the rest is history.
Avon’s founder, David H. McConnell, had been selling books door to door when he decided to sell perfume instead. The company was called the California Perfume Company before it took the Avon name.
The story since has been rockier. In January 2020, Brazil’s Natura &Co completed its acquisition of Avon, creating what the companies called the world’s fourth-largest pure-play beauty company. In August 2024, Avon Products Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, citing rising competition, the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and lawsuits over talc.
Elon Musk’s electric car company, Tesla, recently moved into the energy storage business with the Tesla Powerwall. Using technology developed for its cars, the company created a home battery product—and with it, branched out into a growing $19-billion industry.
The Powerwall has since become a real business. In April 2020, Tesla said it had installed its 100,000th Powerwall, five years after introducing the product. Tesla’s energy storage line has also grown to include much larger products for businesses and utilities, such as the Megapack.
Uber made the move into food delivery with UberEATS, launched in 2016. By using the same back-end tech the original Uber app is based on and drawing on the massive network of drivers it already has in place, UberEATS is in a favourable position to be a major competitor with food delivery services such as Grubhub.
Uber kept building on that move. In July 2020, it agreed to buy Postmates for $2.65 billion in an all-stock deal, and the acquisition closed in December 2020. Postmates kept its own brand, while some back-end operations, including a shared pool of drivers, were merged with Uber’s.
Take a look at our story on Uber’s move to leverage its passive data into profitable partnerships here.
What Happened Next
Looking back, the five moves worked out very differently. Uber’s food delivery business grew into a core part of the company, and Tesla’s home battery became one product in a wider energy business. Red Bull’s media arm became a natural extension of how it already marketed itself.
Airbnb’s own expansion took a different route than the one described above. Of the Flights and Services it promised in 2016, it was Services that arrived: in May 2025, Airbnb introduced Airbnb Services and a redesigned Airbnb Experiences, letting guests book things like chefs, massages and photographers through its app.
Avon is the reminder that an old adjacency move doesn’t protect a company forever. Its switch from books to beauty built a global brand, but its 2024 bankruptcy filing shows that a long history in one market is no guarantee of the future.
What It Means for Startups
The pattern across all five is the same: each company moved into a market where something it already had gave it a head start. For Uber it was drivers and logistics software. For Tesla it was battery technology. For Red Bull it was a brand built on sports and adventure.
For founders, the useful question isn’t “what’s the next big market?” It’s “what do we already have that someone else would find hard to copy, and where else could it be worth something?” Moves that start from that answer are usually less risky than ones that start from a market that just looks attractive.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does expanding into an adjacent market mean?
It means applying a company's core competencies, like its technology, customers, brand or network, in a new market rather than making a complete pivot. The core business keeps running while the company builds on what it already has.
How did Airbnb expand beyond home rentals?
In November 2016, Airbnb launched Trips, which combined homes with bookable local Experiences, and said Flights and Services would be added later. In May 2025, it introduced Airbnb Services and a redesigned Airbnb Experiences, letting guests book things like chefs, massages and photographers.
What did Avon originally sell?
Avon's founder, David H. McConnell, sold books door to door before switching to perfume in 1886. The company kept its door-to-door, community-based selling model as it moved into beauty, household and personal care products.
How has Tesla's Powerwall done since launch?
Tesla moved into energy storage with the Powerwall home battery, using technology developed for its cars. In April 2020, Tesla said it had installed its 100,000th Powerwall, five years after introducing the product.
How did Uber grow its food delivery business?
Uber launched UberEATS in 2016 using its existing technology and driver network. In 2020 it bought Postmates for $2.65 billion in an all-stock deal, keeping the Postmates brand while sharing a pool of drivers.